Nicktoons bombshell: Do Doug and Patti end up together?!

It’s Nicktoons week on EW.com, and we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of Nickelodeon’s debut of Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show in a big way: With some exclusive intel on that outrageous orange splat of shows that helped define your childhood. Pick up this week’s EW or stick around EW.com all week long for exclusive Nicktoons content and our mega-sized oral history of the ’90s animation block.

On Monday, we told you all about the possibilities for rebooting the original Nicktoons. Rugrats folks are in. Ren & Stimpy, not quite. And then there’s Doug. Both the character Doug and the eponymous series itself have always seemed to exist at the whims of other, more powerful people — and as such, series creator Jim Jinkins says the show’s current rights-holder, Disney, doesn’t seem to have much interest in bringing Doug back for more Bluffington bliss.

But Jinkins certainly hopes Disney changes its mind, and he’s fully prepared for when they do. Short of writing a full screenplay for a Doug follow-up, he’s written assorted stories and scenes that would get viewers up to date with what Doug Funnie has been up to all these years later. “I’ve written the scene,” Jinkins tells EW, referring to one major moment that would answer the question Jinkins’ is constantly asked — whether Doug and his lifelong crush, Patti, end up together.

But first: The story of Doug has always been synonymous with the life of Jinkins, who conceived of the character in the early ’80s as a cartoon alter ego. Many of the show’s storylines came from Jinkins’ own life, and that same logic now applies to the filmic follow-up Jinkins has begun writing. The setting: It’s the eve of Doug’s 10-year reunion, and Doug (much like Jinkins) is a freelance artist living in the big city. Skeeter’s his roommate, Judy’s performing off Broadway, Porkchop’s (inexplicably) alive… and then there’s Patti.

What happened to the love of Doug’s life? That’s where Jinkins’ tale about his surprise reconnection with the real Patti Mayonnaise comes in. If you want to know what happens to Doug, you must first find out what happened to Jim:

It’s my ten-year reunion, and I didn’t go. I was in New York working like crazy as a freelancer and just trying to make it there. And I got a phone call in New York and it’s Patti. The real Patti. And my heart’s beating fast. She’s like, ‘I was at the reunion! You weren’t!’ and I was like, ‘Yeah…sorry…I had to work.’ And she goes, ‘I found out you live in New York. Guess what—I do, too!’ And she told me where she lives. We lived across Central Park from each other. And she says, ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner?’

So now we’re in a Doug show. I’m like, what do I wear? What will she look like!? All that’s happening as I’m walking across Central Park to her apartment, just wondering and just hoping, all those things. I was, at the time, very available.

I get to the door, and you get buzzed up in New York, and so I walk up to the apartment and I hear the lock turn—it’s getting ready to happen—and she opens the door, and she’s perfect. Just perfect. She just looks spectacular and she’s so happy, and her arms fly up and we hug, and I’m just like [frightened guttural gasping noises]. She backs up and she goes ‘Look, Jimmy! Boobs! I got my boobs!’ [Laughs.] It sounds like I’m making this up, right? And I’m like, ‘Yeah… yeah, uh huh!’ ‘Yeah, they always used to call me Flatty Patti, but look!’ And she was just funny and fun and innocent, but it’s like Doug and Patti together again, ten years later, right?

So this is all wonderful, right? And then she wheels and goes, ‘Oh, Jimmy, I want you to meet my husband.’

And I don’t even remember the rest of the evening.

There it is, friends: Doug Funnie and Patti Mayonnaise don’t end up together. At least, not right now.

“It doesn’t happen because, really, most people don’t end up with their first love,” says Jinkins, who calls the encounter an “amazing story” that still deserves to be a movie. “But then again, maybe I do do it! There isn’t some rule! It’s not in the Bible. It’s just that most people don’t. I don’t know the answer yet. But I would predict that what I would do is make it where Patti is maybe not married, but in a serious relationship.”

But oh, there’s still one more twist to be had, and it’s classically, characteristically Doug.

“Meanwhile, Doug has this friend of his, a girl, who he’s always pouring his heart out to about how [Patti’s] killing him,” Jinkins continues. “And naturally, I guess maybe it’s a little predictable, but that’s the one. That’s the one he’s comfortable enough to bear his soul to in his next phase of life, that he discovers he’s in love with and didn’t even know it. My guess is that it would be something like that.”